August Kautz

August Valentine Kautz (5 January 1828-4 September 1895) was a Major-General in the US Army who distinguished himself as a Union cavalry commander during the American Civil War.

Biography
August Valentine Kautz was born in Ispringen, Grand Duchy of Baden on 5 January 1828, and he immigrated with his parents to Brown County, Ohio in 1832. He served in the US Army during the Mexican-American War, and he graduated from West Point in 1852, serving as a lieutenant during the wars with the Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. During the American Civil War, he fought in the Peninsula Campaign as a Union Army cavalry captain, and, as a Colonel, he helped repulse John Hunt Morgan's raid into Indiana and Ohio in 1863 and fight under Ambrose Burnside at the Battle of Fort Sanders. On 16 April 1864, he was made a Brigadier-General of volunteers, and he led cavalry operations under Ulysses S. Grant during the Siege of Petersburg, including a raid against Richmond's rail links. He became a Major-General on 14 February 1865, and he was mustered out of service on 15 January 1866. After the war, he helped to investigate the conspiracy behind President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, and he went on to command the Department of Arizona and Fort McDowell. In July 1891, he became commander of the Department of the Columbia as a Brigadier-General, and he retired in 1892 and died in Seattle, Washington in 1895.